Tue, 18 Mar 2008God is frequently misquoted. (Nobody is safe from doing that, not even the Pope.)
(Some people think God wants to help us beat the law of the jungle.) (His law, incidentally!) Sat, 20 Oct 2007Similar as follows: in each, there are two kinds of players: (1) those who believe, and (2) those who manipulate the believers by means of their beliefs. (Not to say that it might not be done for the right reasons...) Politics: The huge smoke screen that hides from most of us what is actually going on. Candidates:
There are several who seem to be telling it like it is. But the smart ones know that won't get anyone elected. Wed, 10 Oct 2007Equivocality in education (and in professional life): It is the fabric, the great, pervasive underlying substance, of most amassed collegiate knowledge, particularly of the liberal artsy stuff -- like a huge, pulsating galactic mass of sticky, gelatinous, non-setting glue that holds the whole educational bailiwick flimsily but tenaciously together. Success in managing equivocality is the main educational goal, and most undoubtedly the best-paying career skill. The luxuries of that pursuit are not so generally afforded by math and science, but it is a fine forte for politicians, managers, Sunday-school teachers, shrinks, lawyers, and, indeed, most professional people, including almost all college professors and charismatic dictators.
(One may presume that inability to deal with equivocality is the fault with autistic persons and geeks (who can, in some cases, fill the portions of their brains normally reserved for equivocality management with rare savant capabilities)).
Mon, 17 Sep 2007
If it means letting in a bunch of people who, on account of their sloppy reproductive behavior, will rapidly outnumber us, and cost us on account of their social-service needs, it is hard for one to say that one is entirely for it. All people are created equal...
But not necessarily in equal numbers. Some are exuberantly created in irrational abundance. Tue, 14 Aug 2007Art is like money. You need some one to tell you its value. If you believe that some one, then you can believe in the value.
You can create your own valuable art by valuing it yourself. If you wish to collect art, you can save a lot of money that way. Mon, 13 Aug 2007Good:
posted at: 22:16 | path: | permanent link to this entry Sun, 12 Aug 2007Great ideas of the 20th Century:
1. TCP/IP Tue, 31 Jul 2007Things Dicky, as a child, did not want to know:
posted at: 22:56 | path: | permanent link to this entry Sat, 23 Jun 2007One problem I have with God is the idea that us animals need to eat other animals as a matter of good nutrition. Every now and then small answers miraculously creep into my brain. This time: Most predators* are marvelously equipped to deliver a quick and relatively painless death, most frequently at a time when the predatee has lived, anyway, beyond his years, or is otherwise in poor condition.
Compare that with what we get on account of health care and our own mercifulness.
Fri, 15 Jun 2007My doctor told me that the human body is designed to last about 50 years.
At that time I was 75. Thu, 31 May 2007Today it is reported that Germany has banned the makers of Tom Cruise's new movie from filming at military sites in the country because the actor is a Scientologist.
The reasoning seems to be that Scientology, unlike all of the other religions, is a money-making, brain-washing, scam. Wed, 30 May 2007
Via some aspect of the communications MEDIA, a web page in this instance, I attempt to transmit the image to you. If I transmitted it correctly, and you got it correctly, TRUTH happened. Example: I know how to get from here to there. I draw you a map. You get there. Ya, true map! Popular admonition: The map is NOT the territory. Further reading here (That was an essential part of Dicky's early education, and took an entire college course to get across. These days, it is clear that almost nobody can guess what it is about. Truth nowadays is what you achieve when you give your heart to Jesus, or blow up some infidels.)
(By now, the literature of General Semantics has gotten very intricate,
voluminous, and mysterious. Possibly General Semantics is on the way
to becoming a religion, like Dianetics did.) Fri, 11 May 2007
Send your checks to Dicky. Sun, 29 Apr 2007Populations of all things living natcherly shut themselves down after a while by eating up all the food and crapping up their environ (Search "sigmoidal growth curve"). In the case of us, minute elevations in carbon dioxide concentration is a really minor detail, and one of many. The real problem is us. Hey, where does the O2 in that CO2 come from?
Hey, we're really gonna miss that when that's gone! Sat, 28 Apr 2007Dicky's Rules for language improvement: 1. Any institutional attempt to simplify language will inevitably complicate it.
2. White space beats the shit out of almost everything.
1. Create a crisis on the countryside. 2. Present yourself as the solution. -anon Thu, 26 Apr 2007
Tue, 24 Apr 2007The Middle Class -- Its own worst enemy? (Another proposition for Lou Dobbs) Periodically, the Middle Class sucks itself dry. That is the core of economic cycles. Not everybody can work at a desk -- somebody needs to sweat. Ideally, the Middle Class serves to remove (consume) material excesses from a society before imbalance, e.g. gluts, can develop. It is a sink more than a resource. It is a tool for distributing and neutralizing the advantages of material resources.
Cyclically, it eliminates itself by its efficiency and growth, but smolders like amphibian eggs under a desert creek bed.
"I do believe evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can’t help thinking that... and this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why and where evolution is headed and that's why we’ve got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap." -Kurt Vonnegut recently on the Daily Show. Sat, 21 Apr 2007
Taking pills against the frustration and anxiety of unresolved problems is a poor solution. Pill-happy people get progressively more fragile realities. To challenge those is to ask for trouble. Medical doctors and politicians are frequently pill-happy. One safe topic is the possibility of happier pills. Another is "Victory". Sun, 15 Apr 2007Agerelately, I consider passing: In a dream, or fantasy, I have progressed. I am discussing the universe (creation), and measuring it between my thumb and forefinger.
Is there any place, I ask, within it as beautiful as the planet I just left? Fri, 06 Apr 2007
Somebody quipped:
Bill Maher has pointed out that most illegal drugs were, at some time, legal, and that pharmaceutical companies, for their own good reasons, have put a stop to that. Codeine, as cough medicine, is highly effective, and is, almost everywhere but here (in the U.S. of A.), available without a prescription. Cannabis is incredibly effective as a sedative and antidepressant, and is a whole lot less habit-forming than high-priced prescription drugs with the same function.
Funny, though, that undocumentated immigration is favored by the same folks who legally control the legal drug market. Thu, 05 Apr 2007War on the Middle Class -- clarifying the issues: Presumably between Corporate and Aristocratic America, on the one side, and us on the other. Their weapons:
(Lou Dobbs thinks that raising the minimum wage is part of the answer.) Sat, 31 Mar 2007A medicine curing incurable diseases -- Dicky, at some moment in his so-called career, helped "bring to market" one such "product". Now a child who has has that disease can grow up to have children who have that disease, but can be cured of it.
If you have such a child, and you can latch on to $200,000 annually, maybe slightly less due to emerging competition, you may someday get to be a Gaucher's Grandfather. Sun, 25 Mar 2007"The legal basis for the work we do is hopelessly ambiguous and overcomplicated!" said Dicky to his boss, frustratedly. "And so you have your job", he replied, smiling supportively.
(And now a pension.) (The shame of it all!) Fri, 16 Mar 2007That's us. Eternal. Briefly human. Hoagy knew. *Eternity* needs to be reconsidered, according to modern astrophysics. (From the Big Bang to the Last Whimper?) What God wants: He wants us to duke it out. Darwin knew. When stuff gets really scarce, Mad Max will show us the way. Saving the World: 1. Public transportation (trains, trolleys, and busses, possibly horsedrawn). 2. Triage -- not everybody can be, or should be, saved. Nor wants to be, to be exact.
3. Growth needs give way to shrinkage. Waneage the next buzzword. Making some room for the tigers and the coral reefs and the polar ice.
Thu, 08 Mar 2007
There is a huge segment of literate humanity dedicated to studying how to use the quirks of language to win. You bastards are the enemy. But I cannot guess how to effectively challenge you. You overcome with a tsunami of bullshit. I have no resistance. Even your bullshit legacies float me off. Tue, 06 Mar 2007This quote from an old newsgroup post explains plenty of stuff: "In many cases, boring and complexity are deliberate *features* of nonsense. There is a 'method' to the madness of both marxism and Scientology for example, that involves deliberate complication of simple things in order to create an 'elitist' caste of cognoscenti. You can't understand it? No wonder, you're an idiot, and haven't spent years delving." "Hell, even Novell and Wordperfect used to do it and *they* had actual products :)" "Make something complex enough, and you can sell 'training' for big bucks."
MPG.19efcf95b2c0c3f7989882@news2.lightlink.com
Wed, 28 Feb 2007A few random thoughts to start things off: We will stay in Iraq until it is clear who will control the oil, and it is us. John Smith was not a true prophet. Neither was L. Ron Hubbard nor Mary Baker Eddy. Moses probably did see something on the mount, but most likely the aftermath of a lightning strike. Intermediates are on simlarly thin ice. Sharpton is good, though. Mark his words! Follow him when he goes west (or south, or whatever). Stay clear of Mitt! Gore knows stuff that most of us can only guess at, but he is not a natural-born leader like Geo. W. Bush.
Population control is the one thing that you cannot talk about with anybody (except the Chinese). If we could boost population growth down far enough, then everybody could drive SUVs without any noticable effect on the atmosphere. There would be plenty of work in Mexico for all of the Mexicans. 
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